Sonia says won’t respond to people with ‘narrow mindset’

Neemuch (MP): With Union Minister Giriraj Singh’s remarks against her sparking a major controversy, Congress President Sonia Gandhi today said she would not like to respond to people with narrow mindset.

“I don’t think it is proper to respond to persons having narrow mentality,” Gandhi told reporters after surveying the damaged crops and meeting farmers in Neemuch district in Madhya Pradesh.

Giriraj Singh had kicked up a row with his remarks asking whether Congress would have accepted Sonia Gandhi’s leadership had she not been white-skinned.

“Had Rajiv Gandhi married a Nigerian woman and if she was not a white-skinned woman, would the Congress have then accepted her leadership?,” he told journalists on Tuesday.

Various women leaders also attacked Singh, who is Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, saying it reflected his racial mindset and attitude towards women.

The Minister, who had courted controversies with remarks during Lok Sabha elections like people opposed to Narendra Modi can go to Pakistan, also mocked Rahul Gandhi’s absence from the political scene and likened it to the “missing Malaysian airliner”.

Meanwhile, to a query on Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi’s sabbatical, Sonia Gandhi said, “Rahul will come back soon and he will soon go in the midst of farmers.”